is there going to be any differences in hardware for the vista laptops?

the core2 duo processor thing, how improtant is that? we have wireless hookup at the appartment and all around the school. should i be willing to pay extra for it over a lesser processor? how much of a difference does it make?

should i perfer certain brand names over others? i hear dell makes really crappy laptops and haven't heard any good things about compaq or hp. why is that? i hear the sony viao and toshiba laptops are good. why?

1. No most of the laptops will be backwards compatible and upgradeable with Vista although you'll probably need more than 1gb to run it without losing too much speed.

2. Core 2 is important b/c it has 4MB cache speed for the processor giving it approximately 1.5x more power than a dual core.

3. Dell - crap
HP/Compaq- alright product but parts can get expensive
Sony - no service centres have to send it to Cali to get fixed two week
wait
IBM/Lenovo - Having software issues since Lenovo took over. Parts are
the most expesive in the industry

Toshiba is your best bang for your buck in my opinion....but then again am a little bias as I work for them. The parts are reasonable and you can get all the parts seperate down to the screws. The quality is high and they are known extensively for the k/b they implement. Also service is realtively quick and easy.